The present disclosure relates to circular knitting machines of the type having stationary cams and a rotating cylinder carrying knitting needles that are vertically reciprocated by engagement with the cams.
A circular knitting machine of the above-indicated type typically includes a knitting head that receives yarns from a set of yarn feeders spaced about the circumference of the machine. The knitting head includes a set of needles carried by a rotating cylinder, and in some machines the head also includes a dial that carries another set of needles that reciprocate horizontally and cooperate with cylinder needles; in other cases there are horizontally moving sinkers that act with the cylinder needles. As the cylinder rotates about a vertical axis, the cylinder needles are driven to move up and down in vertical channels or tricks defined in the cylinder, and the dial needles or sinkers are driven to move horizontally inward and outward in horizontal channels, and these knitting tools cooperate to form stitch loops so as to form a continuous tubular fabric. The fabric descends from the knitting head to a take-down unit that flattens the tube and draws it downward. The flattened fabric tube is wound into a roll by a winder/storage unit. The entire structure comprising the winder/storage unit and take-down unit rotates about the vertical axis along with the cylinder.